


It's a fickle thing

by mindless_indulgence



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Animate Object, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2018-10-13 20:02:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10520850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindless_indulgence/pseuds/mindless_indulgence
Summary: Doctor Stephen Strange has a close, somewhat weird relationship to his Cloak, but then again, the Cloak has more personality than most people he went to med school with.And then, one day, it becomes even more.





	1. Relics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alyeen1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyeen1/gifts).



Stephen Strange, doctor of medicine, prodigy surgeon, and lately, magician, sweared colorful while sitting on his 500 year old desk, reading an 800 year old tome. Or at least, he tried to. The damn thing always tried to skip forward, turned several pages over or back, and snapped at his fingers.  
It was a guide on how to run something as impossible and unpredictable as as magic institution, or at least it was supposed to be one. It obviously didn’t took the death of The Ancient One well, and blatantly refused to aid her successor in any kind of way.  
Sighing, Stephen closed the book, only to have it been reopened stubbornly at a random page. It showed a complicated spell that somehow looked like a risen middlefinger.

Rubbing his face, Stephen decided to call it a day, or, more precicely, a day and a night, and to catch some sleep.  
Too much was to do, even with Wong’s help, and he wasn’t a man who would slow down before the task was completed.  
As he rose from his chair, he realized that he’d missed dinner, and probably lunch, again. His knees went weak, and he would’ve made a graceless dive to the floor, if the Cloak wouldn’t have catched him. The velvety cloth wrapped itself around him, and basicly carried him to his room. Stephen was asleep before he hit the mattress.  


The following weeks, the Cloak seemed to become even more attentive than before Stephen’s almost-collapse in the library.  
It flew away to come back with tea or dinner, hell knew how it was able to put a meal together. It wrapped around him and tugged him to bed when he lost himself in his studies again, and even once dragged him toward Christine when he failed to notice her on the streetwalk.  
After witnessing their awkward talk for 20 minutes till, blissfully, Christine’s pager went off, the Cloak had learned it’s lesson about this.  
It refused to leave him alone most of the time too, only staying out of the bathroom, and discreetly leaving the bedroom when Stephen had enough energy left inside him to get sexually frustrated enough to masturbate.  
These were the moments Stephen realized that the Cloak was not only his best friend in the world now, who took care of him in a way he never experienced before, but also, that it had more understanding for human nature than he’d expected. He truly didn’t know how to deal with it.  
He made an efford into reassuring the Cloak on his gratitude, hesitantly returning the little pets and strokes the Cloak had shown him right from the beginning, and treating it less like a soulless object.  


Stephen also made a point of taking the Cloak with him as often as possible, knewing that it didn’t like to be left behind, worrying about him and probably feeling excluded.  
He had no idea how he could know that, but something in the weaving looked sad and wounded at him when he returned.  


So it was wrapped tightly around his shoulders when he sat in some kind of high-wizzard meeting with some real weird looking people. None of them looked the Gandalf-type he expected from the advertisement.  
Sure, one oft hem looked old as an oak, with a long white beard, but he also had a shaved head covered in tattooes, and wore a pearl in his ear. He looked more like a pirate than a wizzard. The Keeper Of The Reams had been introduced to him, a woman who tended the written knowledge in Europe for 300 years now, and she looked like a feisty brunette in her late 20ies, dressed completely in silver ropes.  
The ropes seemed to have a similar mind like the Cloak, as they occasionally loosened themselves to tenderly pet her neck. He wondered if she wore anything under them.  
The other wizzards looked either dissapointingly mundane, or like something from a circus.  
After the introductions, Wong explained the short meeting.  


„Alye has discovered the lost library of Atlantis!“  
Everyone looked reverently at the young woman, whose silver ropes seemed to flush in a rosy glance. Sheself seemed to be quite unimpressed from the attention.  
„I found traces in the written vail, and compared them with the thaumacosmic background radiation – „  
Stephen didn’t understand or had even heard most oft he words she used, but apparently it was a great deal to everyone.  
He raised his hand.  
„One question.“  
Everyone turned their eyes on him.  
„Atlantis? Really? This place exists? Is there any whacko fantasy thing that _doesn’t_? Do you breed unicorns somewhere, and domesticate Loch Ness monsters?“  
Wong covered his laughter with a cough last second.  
„So far, neither of these have come true, but we haven’t eliminated their existence yet. Atlantis has been one of the Sanctums, but a tragic incident we still can’t grasp made the island perish into the sea. It is speculated that it was a magic accident, but nobody survived to confirm this. The following earthquake made it impossible to trace the location, but apparently, Alye had found a way around this.“  


She nodded, her glossy hair falling around her pretty face like a veil. When her silvery eyes focussed on Stephen, he could see amusement in them.  
„Our new fellow will be pleased to hear that I located it in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. Actually, Atlantis is responsible for the multidimensional instability the place is known for. Probably a side effect of sunken, wet magical artifacts. They hate the cold.“  
She smirked, and it felt like the Cloak tightened itself around Stephen.  
„So, who’s going there to check on it?“  
The smirk widened, and Stephen could’ve sweared he heard distant chuckling.  
Wong looked at him with a somber expression, when he answered  
„Tradition has it that,for thousands of years now, it will be The One Who Asketh.“  
Stephen closed his eyes so no one would see him rolling them.  


Of course, Wong helped him prepare for such an exceptional quest, but he wasn’t eager to learn why no one with a choice went to loot bound magic that has been lying in Davy Jones' locker for thousands of years.  


Girdled with protective sigils, absorbing spells, his trustworthly Cloak and iron rations, he opened the portal to the location Alye had provided, and stepped into darkness. When he summoned a light, he realized that he walked inside of a bubble on the ocean bed, surrounded by exotic looking ruins.  
Most buildings were long gone, together with the remains of the residents, but he discovered a huge building anyone would’ve recognized as a library.  
Carefully walking inside, he discovered a furnishing very similar to the sanctum in New York, and with a careful prepared spell, he freed it from the water inside.  
Stephen placed the brassen stabilizers Wong gave him, so they could teleport the valuables safely to the sanctum.  
When he was nearly done, he noticed a single tome in a little room. The weird thing was, he couldn’t see a door. It slightly shone through a crack in the wall.  
Curious, he walked toward it, till the Cloak tried to pull him away.  
„Stop this, what is wrong with you? I just want to check out the – „  
Somehow he had managed to get to the cracked wall.  
As he sat foot inside oft he room, the floor decided that it wanted to try something else in this life, and become the ceiling.  
Also, a sudden splash of ice-cold water hit Stephen in the face, and in everything else.  


Then everything went black.  


When he regained his conscience, he was in the little room, no tome in sight. A disturbing green light filled the room, and the former crack in the wall was now a rift in the floor, filled with black, still water.  
And Stephen was completely soaked.  
„What the hell was that?!?“  
Luckily, the Cloak was still with him. It levitated in the middle of the room, shaked itself from water, and floated towards him.  
Stephen couldn’t describe how the piece of fabric managed it, but somehow, it imparted him the words _trap, evil,_ and _stupid!_ , even with exclamation mark.  
He sighed.  
„Yes, you’re right, I was foolish and stupid, and should have listened to you. Let me teleport us back to- „  
He stared at his hand.  
The ring was gone.  
„Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!“  
He sat on the floor.  
„Let’s hope Wong will miss me big enough to come looking for us.“  
Cold and emerging fear made him shiver.  
The Cloak wrapped itself around him in a heartbeat. Still, it was incredible cold down there, and Stephen’s clothes were soaked wet.  
Realizing the Cloak was, unlike everything else he wore, dry, Stephen remembered basic facts on freezing:  
If you wear wet clothes, take them off. You’ll rather get warm naked and dry than wet and dressed.  
So he wrestled off his wet robe, pants and shoes, and, even somewhat coy, the Cloak swathed him again. It wasn’t enough, though. Stephen couldn’t stop shivering, the cold sitting in his bones.  
The Cloak started moving, like a person would rub on freezing skin. Stephen groaned. The fabric was soft and warm, and it touched him gently, but firm. He started to feel his limbs again.  


Encouraged, the Cloak became bolder, wrapping itself around Stephen’s arms and legs seperately rather than around him as a whole, waving over him in soft strokes.  
Another moan left Stephen’s throat. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him like that. The fabric felt like a thousand lips cajoling his long neglected skin –  
_Shit!_  
He was hard.  
Hard enough to drill concrete. The affectionate touches had woken up his dormant libido in a frenzy, and his frustrated cock didn’t gave one damn on the fact that this wasn’t a woman, not even a _human_ touching him like this.

It just wanted more!  
And he couldn’t even rely on the fact that the Cloak didn’t knew the first thing about human sexuality, otherwise it wouldn’t have left everytime he took things in hand.  
Stephen blushed so hard he was sure he glowed in the darkness.

  
The Cloak stiffled. It clearly knew what was going on with Stephen, and he expected it to fly away in disgust.


	2. A Saucerful Of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So we're getting to the Lemon. I'm making it sweet since it's their first.

After what felt like decades, the Cloak moved again.  
Hesitantly, it glided over his skin again, the haptic equivalent of a shy smile.

Stephen didn’t know what to do with himself. He was trapped in an almost – black cave on the bottom of the fucking ocean, buck-naked and freezing, and his damn _magic Coat_ made him horny as hell!  
But his treacherous body shifted into the featherly touch of the Cloak, and another groan escaped his mouth. Encouraged, the Cloak petted him a bit more, and it felt like fingers sliding over his neglected skin, soft and warm and affectionate.  


Involuntary, his hips started rocking towards the caress, and damn if it didn’t made the Cloak shudder like an aroused girl on her first night.  
Blasting all hesitations, conventions and concerns to hell, Stephen reached out for the Cloak, stroaking and fondling it, even though he was completely clueless what would work for a piece of fabric. But _damn_ , the thing was responsive, leaning into his touch, even getting some kind of goosebumbs when he stroaked the collar.  
Bashfully, the collar advanced towards his mouth, and in the gloomy green light, he could’ve mistaken it for a pair of soft, plush lips, kissing him sweet and softly.  


All remaining doubts flew out oft he window, or out of the pitch black water hole in the floor, to be more precisely. Stephen grabbed for the Cloak, indulging in the kiss, rutting against it like a randy teenager. The Cloak seemed to be into this much as he though, as seams and hemlines ran over his shivering skin in an odd mixture of bold and uncertain.  
It felt weird somehow, like those first times as a teenager when puberty tackled you down and made you rub against the matress, while shame and arousal fought a bloody battle on the soil of your mind.  


_Okay_ , the Cloak had, somehow, found a way to focus it‘s heating abilities to one point, a point where it’s fabric was even more silky-smooth than the rest of it, and Stephen’s dick brushed over the spot, making the Cloak shudder and even back away a bit.  


When Stephen gave it reassuring soft, caring strokes, it relaxed again, melting against him, and finally, letting his trembling hands explore its deeper regions. Stephen realized it was a tear in the fabric, but he wasn’t sure if it had always been there. The Cloak always seemed to be in prime condition, but now he felt the ruptured threads around the spot, which made the Cloak gasp and wiggle against him. 

A sudden explosion, or seaquake maybe, made their little cavern shake and buffet, and Stephen rolled on top of the Cloak, which embraced him in its ever-present urge to protect him.  
Trying to hug it somehow to reassure it, Stephen shifted around, and okay, his straining, rock-hard, seriously frustrated cock got the better of him for a brief moment, and suddenly, he felt a brief resistance, and then slid into the pulsing heat of the Cloaks insides.

Stephen gasped. He couldn't remember anything that had ever felt so intense, so hot and tight. Even with Christine, he'd always insisted on condoms. Medic people tended to be germaphobes, and 'trust' was a feeble thing to depend your health on. Not that he had enough blood in his brain now to think about magic-item STDs. Another first for him, since at least one part of his brain usually kept itself business with questions, analyses and deductions.

But now, all parts of him were wrapped inside and around the Cloak, whose silky soft fabric caressed every last bit of his skin, unrestrained by such mundane limitations like reach, angles and limbs. With desperate, greedy hands he tried to hold on tighter on the Cloak, while his lips and tongue explored the seam on its collar that felt better than every mouth he ever kissed. 

The friction was too much and nearly not enough at the same time, and while the fabric was soft and somewhat slippery, Stephen's dick burned a bit from the lack of lubrication. 

_Next time, I'm gonna get some Astroglide._

_NEXT TIME?_ The Cloak shifted again, squeezing the base of his cock, making him leak a spurt of precome, and _fuck_ , it felt so SO GOOD he almost came at this moment. 

There would be **definitively** a next time, if the Cloak would let him. 

With all containment flying out of the window, or, the cave, to be precise, Stephen clutched roughly onto the Cloak, pounding into it with deep and hard thrusts, and he bit into the collar when he felt the hemline enveloping him, brushing over his ass hesitantly at first, but then pushing inside him with eager confidence. 

Stephen yelled from the unfamiliar intrusion, but the Cloak touched something inside him, and he felt like ripping apart, combusting into a sparkling cloud of pure bliss. Moaning, Stephen felt incapable to stop, riding his orgasm out into the Cloak, which suddenly shuddered, illuming into a glowing light of dark pink, and sending little shocks all over Stephens skin.

Gasping for air, he held on tight to the Cloak as his muscles relaxed, softly petting its fabric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a respectful reference to the Pink Floyd Album that featured Dr Strange on it's cover.  
> Yes, I'm a nerd, in my porn too.


	3. A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Satisfaction and exhaustion had Stephen doze off for a while, and when he regained his senses, he was confused for a moment. Then it all came back to him.

Atlantis. 

Trapped at the bottom of the sea. 

Had sex with Cloak. 

_shit_

Now what?  
He was wrapped inside the Cloak like a burrito, and even though he never saw the Cloak be asleep or something, its slow, even billows could've been easily mistaken as the deep breaths of someone sleeping. When he moved a little, the Cloak seemed to wake up, making uncoordinated movements till it got itself together. From the hesitant exploring touches around his naked body he could tell that the Cloak was, too, overwhelmed by the reminder of what they had done.  
And while Stephen was still trying to think of something smart to say, a portal opened in front of them, and Wong stepped out of it. 

"I see you skillfully mastered your first task as Sorcerer Surpreme, Strange." 

Stephen was too tired to come up with a witty response. Wong reached out his hand, and Stephen gladly grabbed it to pull himself of the floor.  
Blushing, he gathered the pile of wet clothes. 

"I thought the tome was in here, but then the room collapsed, I lost my darn ring, and the tome was gone." 

Wong nodded slowly. 

"Well, Alye found a little note, scratched into a brick actually, which told her that the Atlantis librarian was somewhat paranoid, with a questionable sense of humor. Apparently she considered everyone who couldn't detect 4th grade illusional traps unworthy of her books." 

Wong created a purple octagram, and the grey brickwalls turned into bookshelfs, in such a prime condition Stephen couldn't believe they've been on the bottom of the ocean for thousands of years.  
Carefully, Wong gathered the books, handing them through the portal to a young acolyte, and Stephen was utterly relieved once they stepped back into the sanctum.  
Wong gave him a scrutinizing look. 

"You okay? Did anything happen to you? You've been gone for almost 20 hours." 

He could feel the Cloak stiffen around him.  
Involuntary, Stephen blushed, and he stammeringly answered 

"What? No, uhm, nothing happened. At all. I just really need a hot bath now, something to eat and a really long nap. Excuse me." 

Feeling Wongs wondering eyes on his back, Stephen rushed into his room.  
As soon as he closed the door, the Cloak let go of him, awkwardly floating into the corner it usually retreated to when it wanted to give Stephen some privacy. 

  
The fact that men are incapable of talking about their emotions is, actually, untrue.  
There is no shortage of men who are in touch with their feelings, able to cry and communicate with others about their fears, love and sentiments.

  


Stephen, however, wasn't one of these men. 

Born with a brilliant, analytical mind, emotions have always been confusing to him, as they can't be measured, rationalized, examined.  
Stephens parents, while nurturing and supporting, never showed very much vocal or physical affection to him or to each other.  
He had always been at loss in his relationships when his girlfriends complained about lacking affection, and he never saw sense in discussions about how much who cared for whom, or the nature of the relationship. He told them wheter he wanted to be exclusive or not, but beside that, he considered that kind of personal conversation a waste of his precious time. 

Now, however, he regretted that he never learned how to explore his feelings, and express them comprehensible.  
He looked at the Cloak, which, aside from levitating above the floor, could've been mistaken for an inanimate object. 

Well, it _was_ an inanimate object. 

Except it wasn't.  
It was his companion, caretaker, guardian, friend - 

_ lover  _

No, that was just plain lunacy, right?  
Right. 

**Right.**

He prepared himself a hot bath, gratefully sinking his aching body into the steaming water.  
A knock on the door woke him up. 

"Yes? I am taking a bath!" 

The door opened, and Wong stepped inside, carrying a tray. 

"Don't get used to it, but I brought you some soup. Get some rest, but the Keeper Of The Reams is expecting your report, and you shouldn't let her wait for too long."

He sat the tray down on a small table and left.  
Stephen left the tub, toweled himself dry and put on a grey robe. Despite being made of thick silk, it was a bit scratchy. His bed sheets, although high quality egyptian linen, seemed to be scratchy today too. 

_ Not nearly as soft as the delicate fabric of -  _

**Stop it!**

Forcing himself to let go like he did during his exams, when his mind was way too wired to relax after studying for 20 hours, Stephen fell into a fitful sleep.

He woke up shivering. When he sat up, he realized that, for the first time in months, the Cloak wasn't covering him over his blanket. It was still floating in it's corner, lacking any kind of expression on its pattern.

Exhausted, Stephen dragged himself out of bed to get some coffee. While he was preparing himself a mug, he realized that usually the Cloak brought him breakfast while he was showering in the morning.  
A sigh escaped his tight throat. Stephen had no idea how to fix this, and the Cloak being unable to speak was the least part of the problem.  
Did it regret what happened between them? Was it ashamed, disgusted, remorseful because they crossed a line in that cold, dark cave on the bottom of the sea?

What kind of line was it anyway? Stephen never understood why some people had aversions against homosexual or interracial relationships, as he considered them simple results of evolution. With almost 8 billion humans populating the earth, it was a good thing that some of them found sexual fulfilment without the risk of reproduction, and genetic diversity usually generated healthier offsprings.  
He considered the darker edges of human sexuality like necrophilia, pedophilia or bestiality as mental illness, since it always included some kind of forced or involuntary participation. 

The Cloak, however, wasn't a dead, lifeless object. It sure as hell had a mind of its own, and was very capable of expressing its refusal or agreement. He hadn't forced himself onto the Cloak, and even if he had no idea how that was possible, Stephen was also very sure that it had had some kind of climax too during their encounter.  
So, what line went between a human and a non-humanoid, conscious artifact? 

Stephens head hurt. 

Considering the time span of sorcerers and magic items, he really _really_ hoped he wasn't the first one to experience such an incident. But _how the fuck_ was he supposed to do some research on this topic?  
Stephen was anything but prude, and he considered Wong a friend, but still he wasn't comfortable with the thought of telling him about this. 


	4. Touch, Feel and Lose

Stephen ate his breakfast and intended to go to back to his room, even if he had no clue how to adress the topic with the Cloak. He wasn't one to avoid complications, rather dealt with them immediately to get them off his mind.

But he ran into Wong, who insisted that they took care of the salvaged books.  
When they got into the library, Stephen felt oddly bare and incomplete. Then he remembered, and it sent a jab into his guts. 

It was the first time in ages that he walked around without the Cloak. It had become a part of him, like the watches he used to wear, or the constant music he listened to in med school, and later, in the surgery. 

_This is stupid, I am moping over a garment..._

Something slapped him in the face, and, for the second time, he could hear Wong laughing out loud. 

A small pile of books was displayed on the table in front of them, and while they all, somehow, managed to give a pissed-off vibe, one book in particular seemed to be pouting.  
Wong snickered. 

"This is the Corpus Mageía, one of the oldest written compilations of magic we know of. And it's not amused over your lack of respect or courtesy." 

Stephen rubbed his cheek, and wondered how you apologize to a book. He decided to sit down, and examined it in detail. 

The book wasn't particularly thick, and a bit smaller than a college note book. It had a hard leather cover in a rich deep-blue color, and the pages seemed to be made of some kind of snake skin. At first he thought the pages were empty, but he discovered that they were raised, like braille type. 

"This is one of the first manuals on magic that's ever been written. Probably over 3500 years old. And, according to the records, quite the drama queen." 

Carefully, Stephen traced the first page with his fingers. The page started to glow in a soft blue light, and dozens of images slammed into his mind.  
Luckily, he was used to this now, but it still was a disturbing experience. 

"It's been really boring for her the last centuries. She and the other books fairly annoyed each other in the end. We should stack them seperately with our collection, give them some space." 

"Fascinating. Usually books are hesitant to bond with a new Sorcerer Surpreme.  
Wong hesitated  
"She?" 

Stephen smiled. 

"That was the first impression I got from her. How can objects have a sex anyway?" 

_ Apparently, they can not only have a sex, but _ the _sex too._

Stephen tried to will the upcoming blush away.  
He didn't know if Wong didn't notice his reaction, or had decided to ignore it. 

"Aside from they physical form, magic items can become as human as you and me. They have a mind, free will, and emotions. Maybe this books creator was a woman, or the materials came from a female, or it just decided that it featured female attributes. There is not much we haven't seen in this area." 

Stephen wondered if Wong tried to have _the talk_ with him here, or if the subject was pure coincidence. 

"Anyway, she seems to have taken a liking to you. I don't have to tell you that here, the books decide for themself if and what they let us know about their content. You should take good care of her." 

Absently, Stephen let his fingers glide over the ancient leather. The cover started to glow again. 

"You have quite the magic touch for, well, magic items." 

Chuckling, Wong turned to the door and left Stephen alone with his embarassment and a clingy magic book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested, the chapter title isn't Pink Floyd, but Ryan Adams.  
> The lyrics are:
> 
> Knew I was never gonna talk to you tomorrow  
> And oh, the birds, how they sing  
> If you were a bird, could you sing me a song of sorrow?  
> 'Cause all I know now from you is grief  
> But I never wanted to be your rolling train
> 
> I never wanted to be your dancin' shoes  
> I just wanted you to love me  
> I just wanted you to love me  
> Touch, feel and lose  
> And cry, cry, cry
> 
> I thought maybe I could be some kind of shelter  
> But oh, your storm how it raged  
> You know your kisses, they like lightnin' and thunder  
> And your smile is sweet and come down like rain


	5. Wish you were here

For the next wizard meeting, Stephen felt compelled to wear the Cloak again.  
The Cloaks once warm, rich red color looked pale, somehow.  
When Stephen grabbed the Corpus Mageía, he could've sweared a yellow shimmer waved over the Cloak.

The other sorcerers made quite a fuss over the books, especially the Corpus Mageía, which obviously enjoyed the attention very much.  
Stephen was grateful for the break. He had studied the tome the last few days, and while he learned a lot from it, the visions and six-dimensional experiences had left him tired, drained and with a wicked headache.  
Exhausted, he rested his head on his arms for a moment ,and he almost fell asleep when he felt a featherlight touch on his cheek. Confused for a moment, he realized that the Cloak was hesitantly petting him, like it wasn't sure if its affections were still welcome.  
He exhaled, and leaned into the touch. 

"Master Strange, you _have_ to show us how you've been working with the Corpus Mageía! Master Wong told us you've been able to read it without efford, you _cannot_ imagine what an honor this is for a Sorcerer Surpreme as young as you!"  
An excited magician pulled at his sleeve. 

Reluctantly, Stephen got up and walked over to the ivory bookrest the Corpus was seated on. It was just when he opened the book when he realized that the Cloak had remained on his seat, thrown over the chair back like any other coat. 

It kind of broke Stephens heart. 

3 endless hours of magic mumbo-jumbo later, Stephen retreated to the interior courtyard of the Sanctum.  
As he sat on a bench, trying to regain some of his inner peace, the door opened again, and the Keeper Of The Reams entered the garden. 

The last time he had seen her, Alye had been wearing the silvery ropes like an uniform, making her look professional, intimidating, serious.  
Now they were braided around her body like a careful arranged birthday present wrapper, and the silver was several shades deeper.  
They had talked a few sentences earlier, but with the buzz of a few dozen sorcerers voices, a real conversation would've been futile.  
She was carrying a tray of tea, and gave him a bright smile. 

"It got a bit much in there, right? I was hoping to catch you in private for a moment. Care for a nice cup of tea?" 

Stephen managed a smile, and nodded grateful.  
She poured him a cup, the tea, unlike the light herbal one he was used to now, a deep black liquid, stronger than coffee, and sweet as late summer berries.  
As he sighed with pleasure, she turned to him, still smiling this gorgeous, cryptic smile. 

"I see you're not with the Cloak of Levitation right now? You should know that it's been almost 200 years since it granted a magician with its attention." 

Stephen couldn't hold back a sarcastic snort. 

"You're the first one today not to congratulate me on the honor of being acknowledged by the Corpus Mageía." 

"Well, I've been around longer than most of them, and I have more experience with magic tomes. Let me tell you this; magic books take, but Magic Items _give_." 

Absently, she twisted her fingers around the ropes on her body, which made them glow in a warm orange light. 

"I take it you have these, uhm, ropes, for a while now?" 

Her face lit up with pride and felicity.  
"These are the Tows Of Valour." 

Alye tickled them, and the silvery shade turned pink.  
"We have been together now for 270 years. Never left them for an hour." 

"Like - together _together_?" 

She arched an eyebrow.  
"Well, yes, but people usually don't assume it just like that. But your mind seem to be extended." 

Stephen felt that he'd started to blush again.  
"Well, ah, yeah, I'm a bit lost on that subject..." 

For the first time in forever, Stephen was dumbfounded. 

Alye nodded.  
"Wong suspected something like that. He told me you could use some advice on that subject."  
She gave him an encouraging smile.  
"You can talk to me. I promise, I won't judge you."  
She took a sip from her teacup. 

"Ah, okay. alright. So, the thing is, I uhm.. I - I think I had sex with my Cloak." 

Alye spluttered her tea, barely missing him.  
When she finished coughing, she looked at him with a bewildered expression.  
"You _think_ you had sex with it?? How can you be unsure about something like _that_?" 

"Well uhm, physically, it's a piece of fabric and -" 

"Don't give me that bullshit. I assume you had sex with another person before, yes? So, even without penetration, you gotta know how -" 

"Well, uhm, there _was_..." 

"You - you just like that put your dick into a _Magic Item_?" 

The Tows Of Valour around her turned a deep scarlet red.  
She quickly reassured them, and whispered something he couldn't make out. The Tows let go of her body, revealing a black dress unterneath, and waved away. 

"Okay, I have to remember you're still new to this. So listen up!  
Magic items develop a conscious. So, imagine being a, I don't know, imagine being a car! You can deny people the entry, but aside of that, you can't do much about the way they're treating you. People are used to take things like you for granted. Your driver might acknowledge your consciousness, but he won't thank you everytime you help him like he would thank a - a person-shaped person. They'll clean you up, but will they make it quick and effective, or look for signs of pleasure or discomfort? Will they realize that rummaging in your trunk is an intimate, sensible process for you?  
Magic Items are so used to get treated like objects, they are in a very vulnerable place if something more - personal happens."  
She sighed.  
"I _guarantee_ you, that it's been the Cloaks first time to let a sorcerer get so close. And you pretty much dicked and dashed it."

Stephens face had turned a deep red color during her speach. He knew, by heart, that everything she said was true. He had been so busy thinking about what this meant to him, he completely forgot to consider what it had meant to the Cloak. 

"You're absolutely right. I have been a major asshole about it. And really, for the first time, I actually _care_ about that. But what can I do now? I haven't been very good in relationships with women, so how do I woo a damn Cloak? I doubt that wine, dine and flowers will do the trick here." 

Alye had regained her countenance by now, but without the magic ropes, and facing such an obscure affair, she seemed a bit lost, too. 

"Honestly, I don't know how to answer that. I have been with the Tows for _decades_ till it became more than a regular sorcerer/Magic Item relationship, and I can assure you, we took things **slow**. We barely had any kind of disagreement the whole time, but, uhm, I guess it works similar like in any other relationship? Tell the Cloak how you feel, and apologize for Hell's sake!" 

Stephen nodded.  
"I will do that, as soon as I won't get crowded by all these people about a clingy book I don't even like that much."  
He looked around. "Where did your Tows went, by the way?" 

"Looking for the Cloak of Levitation to give it some comfort, dumbass."  
She smiled at him saying that, though. 

Stephen braced himself, willing to grovel for the first time in his life. 

None of them heard the furious rustle of pages in the distance.


	6. High hopes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is written from the POV of the Cloak. Since it's not human, without a human mind and human senses, the author had to get creative with the writing. The use of recreative drugs while reading is, however, not necessary or encouraged. Seriously. Drugs are bad, mkay?

_The Cloak had no voice to speak, to ask, to cry._  
_The Cloak had no eyes to watch, to close, to weep._  
_The Cloak had no heart to beat, to yearn, to break._  


______ _ _

__

_It was neither man nor woman, it was unfamilliar with the concept of desire and urge._

_Until now._

__

__

_The Cloak didn't had senses in the biological kind of meaning, but it was hardly blind and deaf.  
_ _It perceived the worlds around like a shark felt the ocean._

__

_Magic was to most humans like water was to fish._  
_They lived within it, lived by it, yet since they couldn't see or grab it, they didn't noticed it.  
_ _But the Cloak felt every wave, every cold midnight-blue depth and every stream of apricot warmth within a quite large perimeter._

_____ _

____

_The unaware humans were silvery shoals of fish, gliding through the matter without disturbing it._  
_Apprentices in the Sanctums were freezing children dabbling in the shallows, or cannonballing from a cliff.  
_ _The skilled sorcerers were, depending on their personality, graceful divers, dashing surfers, or determined long-distance swimmers, every shade from eau de nil to a deep orange._

_____ _

_____ _

_But Stephen...  
_ _Stephen was the Gulf Stream. Warm and swift, powerful and nurturing. Impossible to grasp._

____

____

_The Cloak had felt drawn to him from the very first second, even though the young sorcerer had barely been able to cast a simple spell by that point. The Cloak knew it was facing a leviathan, albeit an infant one.  
_ _They connected quite fast and easy, and the Cloak had felt content to be floating in his strong current._

____

____

_Until they got to this damned ruin of a city that has been put deep down to the bones of the planet for a good reason._  
_The Cloak had tried to warn its master, but he didn't listen.  
_ _The twisted, wicked magic down there felt like electric shocks in a dark cellar. When Stephen stepped into the trap, the Cloak had never felt so scared in its existence._

_____ _

______ _ _

_And then, when Stephen sought comfort in its fabric, the Cloak was overwhelmed like a blinded person seeing their first sunrise._

_He was a vibrant heat, a glowing rainbow, the first drops of rain on a barren field._

__

____

_The Cloak basked in his embrace, entrained in the sparkling deep red every touch created._

_And then... The Cloak had no idea the connection to an organic being could cause something equivalent to a volcanic outburst._

_Too late, it realized their eruption of magical force had woken_ something _down there in its deep carceral._

__

__

__

__

__

_Feeling raw and dizzy, it hadn't realized the dark entity when Wong picked the books from the veiled shelf, and Stephen's ashamed answer to Wong and his following distant behaviour had hurt_ SO much _, the Cloak was in a state of numb sorrow the following days.  
After that, it was the jealousy. The concept was so foreign to the Cloak, it didn't even identify it as this. It resented the Corpus Mageía so much that its color changed. The feeling was so strong it whitewashed any other hunch towards the tome. _

__

__

_Moping in a dark corner of the Sanctum, it didn't realize something equally magic was carefully approaching._


	7. Hey you

Stephen Strange, doctor of medicine, prodigy surgeon, and somewhat lately, magician, sneakily tip-toed through the sanctum, looking for his Cloak.  
Sure, he could have called for it, or used magic for that matter, but he needed to avoid the other wizards until he had a chance to speak with Levi.

_Levi?_

Where the hell did _that_ came from? 

Stephen sighed.   
Well, it figured. The Cloak meant more to him any person ever had before. Humans needed a name for that. The Cloak of Levitation was a description, a label. It didn’t express what it meant to _him_.

When he crossed another corner, he finally found Levi.   
The Cloak was levitating in front of one of those windows that showed you a random location on earth. This must be the even older part of the ancient sanctum, as the window was small, with a heavy brass frame and a turning wheel that looked like a prop from an old Jules Verne movie.   
It wasn’t alone though. At first Stephen was confused about the sudden change in the Cloak’s fabric. When he looked closer, he realized that Alye’s ropes, sorry the Tows of Valour, were braided around the Cloak, giving it new seams and trims. They also had changed their color, now a midnight blue with golden shine. A soothing color. 

Realizing that the Tows were comforting the Cloak gave Stephen a bitter, acid feeling in his stomach.   
Sure, he had treated Levi poorly in the time after their encounter, but shouldn’t a man be given a chance to right his wrongs? To be redeemed? 

After the first wave of shame and anger had washed over him, Stephen, to his most astonishment, realized that he was jealous.   
Jealous. Over a Cloak. Jealous of a Rope. 

The pure ludicrousness of this made him snort out a laugh. Apparently loud enough to startle the two magic items. The Tows seem to squeeze the Cloak for a moment, and then, after some apparent exchange Stephen couldn’t perceive, they let go, and flew away, moving through the air like a see snake in water. When they passed Stephen, they managed to give him an accusing look, even though they didn’t had eyes, a face or any kind of mimics. 

Stephen took a deep breath, mustered up all his courage, and stepped toward the Cloak. 

“Listen, uhm, I know I have acted like a total jerk lately, and that all the work was an easy excuse to not to face what had happened between us –“   
For the first time, Stephen took a closer look to the magic window the Cloak had been floating in front of.   
It showed an ocean, with deep gray waves rolling merciless under a dark clouded sky. It was a terrifying view, hopeless and cold and   
_oh_ “This is the Atlantic, right?” 

The Cloak made an agreeing gesture.   
Stephen tried to swallow the lump in his throat. All his poise and confidence had left him. 

"I am so, so sorry. For the way I treated you since we came back from this darn ocean. For neglecting you, for being ashamed, and for letting this stupid tome hog all of my time and attention. You deserve better. I am really not good at these things, and you being a magic creature makes me even more helpless.   
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.   
But if you're willing to give me another chance, I swear I will do everything to make it up to you -" 

Suddenly, the Cloak was wrapped tightly around his body, and Stephen was astonished, as he had expected to be turned down, or at least faced with a lot more groveling to perform.   
He wanted to tell the Cloak that covering his face completely was a bit exaggerating, but before he could open his mouth, an explosion knocked him out completely.


	8. Learning to fly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know _I know_ it has been way too long since I updated this, but I had some vexations to deal with. So to make it up, I'm adding some hot stuff to the newest chapter (if you're not here for this, suggest other redemptions).

When Stephen became conscious again, everything hurt. It felt awfully lot like waking up after the car accident, and he quickly tried to move his hands and fingers, worried about having lost even more agility with them.  
But his hands seemed fine. When he sat up, he realized that the Cloak had protected him - again- from the worst part of the explosion.

Still a bit shakey, he stood up, the Cloak wrapped around him tightly. His initial thought was that it still tried to protect him, but the greenish shine around it's seams made him realize that the Cloak was scared.  
Stephen had never been good at comforting, and the one thing his teachers and superiors in medicine had found to be lacking where his bedside manners. But for the Cloak, he pushed aside his discomfort, and petted it, murmuring encouragements, until it's color was, again, this gorgeous scarlet red. 

Wandering through the dusty hallway, he was at least releaved that no one got hurt. He found Wong, and the most other sorcerers, in the repository, where the explosion had taken place.  
Making sure no one has been harmed in here either, he helped the librarian to a chair. 

"Are you allright? Do you have blurry vision?" 

Quickly and effective, he checked for signs of a concussion, but apparently, Wong's bullhead had protected him from real damage. 

"I think someone tried to steal the tome. A few minutes before the blow, we started feeling dizzy, and numb. The Corpus Mageía is an incredible powerful object, and while none of us can currently think of someone capable of pulling a stunt like this, this can not be a coincidence." 

Stephen felt like he was missing something important, but sleep deprivation, emotional congestion and stress were preventing him from figuring out what. It could probably wait till tomorrow. 

"We are going to lock the Corpus Mageía into the vault. That's where we keep the really dangerous items. If you could take it down there? It probably won't take it very well being locked away again, but this is the safer option till we know who we are dealing with." 

Tired, Stephen nodded. 

"I'll take care of this. Go and take some rest, Beyonce." 

* * *

Walking down into the cellars of the sanctum, the damned tome in his scarred hands, Stephen oddly felt like a teenager.  
Or, to be more precicely, since he has been a quite somber teenager, like what the media portrayed a teenager to be like.

Because he just could not _wait_ to be alone with the Cloak! 

Wandering through the dimly-lit aisles of weird stuff, weirder stuff, and stuff he didn't even wanted to look at[1] , he found the 1000-years old moonstone bookrest Wong had assured him would be a safe place for the Corpus Mageía. Carefully, he placed the tome onto it. For a second it felt like it gave him an electric jolt, but that may have been the low humidity down here.  
After that, he quickly retreated from the disturbing place. 

Back in his room, Stephen was lost for a moment on how to progress from here.  
The Cloak was tense around his shoulders, and sitting down seemed an impolite action, since he'd be sitting down onto the Cloak then. 

As carefully as he could manage, he slipped out of it. 

The Cloak was floating in the air when Stephen turned around to face it. 

"Okay, I need you to be patient with me, because I am really, really not good at this." 

Absently, he caressed the rich, soft sabric of the Cloak.  
On one hand, it was much easier without a soft face looking at you with big, expecting eyes, a delicate mouth to word expecations and express feelings. On the _other_ hand, talking to a garment still felt weird, and the fact that during his internship on the mental ward he had witnessed a person consuming their objectophilia with a chair[2] certainly didn't help. Like a child, Stephen closed his eyes to make this easier. 

"I apologize to you, again, how I treated you. I am confused, overwhelmed, and seriously inept at dealing with my feelings. But I am _drawn_ to you, more than I can put into words, and -" 

Thankfully, he was interrupted in his babbling by a silky sweet gag over his mouth, and surrendered into the firm embrace of miles and miles of soft, firm velvet and lace.  


[1] If you're interested, among these were a dollhouse solely made out of childrens' teeth; a nude painting of the Mona Lisa that gave you a predatory look; a diary casebound in human flesh; a whip that made the sound of a rattlesnake; a drawing of poker-playing dogs; a valet stand without eyelids; a wailing yucca; the philosopher's stone; a pillow filled with living spiders; a condom with teeth; a bottomless chocolate box that contained nothing but empty paper shells; a porcellan doll without a lower jar; a limited edition stainless steel 2 disc blue-ray box of Green Lantern with an audio commentary of Ryan Reynolds crying for 114 minutes; the mummified corpse of the monster of Ravenna; a jar with the testicles of at least 20 popes; a recipe for a fail-proof chocolate-diet; Mercury, the 7th infinity stone (bright pink, ability to add an arbitrary gay superhero to the multiverse); a working teleporter device; 3 differently coloured dragon eggs; a pair of extremely comfortable shoes with 6 inch heels; the script for Firefly season 2.

[2]Her name was Lucille.


	9. Wearing the inside out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some editing because it felt like this part should have it's own chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

He could feel the desire coming off the cloth in waves, feel the anxiety and lust and desperation roiling of the fabric like something he could reach out for and touch.

His fingers clutched into the Cloak with greedy force, and while he had to be careful in every encounter with a woman, he instinctively knew that he could never have the strength to rip one strand out of the Cloak.  
The Cloak wrapped itself around him, rolling up and down his body in maddening, teasing waves, tugging at his clothes.  
Stephen somehow found the focus to open the knots of his robe and pants, struggling out of his wardrobe while the Cloak hungrily attacked every freed piece of skin. When he finally had shed every piece of clothing, the fabric of the Cloak covered every inch of him. He hissed when it rubbed over his genitals with too much force, reminding him that this was as new to the Cloak as it was to him.

"Careful there. I don't know if you have any sensitive spots, but I certainly do." 

The Cloak withdrew itself a bit, seeming apologetic and uncertain.  
Stephen nibbled at the collar hem. He didn't wanted the Cloak to be hesitant. He could hear the blood rushing through his veins, and his dick was throbbing, pulsing almost painfully in the utter need to get off.  
Luckily, the Cloak picked up on his movements - _Stephen had never understand how people compared intercourse with dancing; in his experience, it has always been more of a clash than a sway. But the way the Cloak reacted to every motion of him, he could start to see the sentiment_ \- and they waved into each other in a passionate rhythm. 

He still didn't knew if there were parts of the Cloak that felt different to it, but he had vivid memories of that chap in fabric where he had slid into last time, and Stephen went on a mission to find it again.  
His hands were roaming over the cloth, following weaving patterns and embroidery, but, and he was only mildly ashamed of this, like his discreet visual inspectation during the last days, he couldn't find one tiny breach between the seams. Even though he could sense the literal heat the Cloak was in, Stephen could feel it tensing up. 

"You don't - we don't have to, you know, _again_ , if you don't want to. If you don't trust me. I really get it, and I'm not mad." 

He could feel the Cloak hesitating. It seemed to be pondering on something, and Stephen knew it was whether he could still be trusted or not. Not that he could blame it for that. Alye's words came to his mind. The Cloak has been untouched in every sense of that term, and he had treated it abominably.  


Most women described their first time as unpleasant or painful, and he wondered if he had hurt the Cloak in a similar way.

While he considered asking something in that direction, the Cloak had made up it's mind. 

It wrapped itself aroung him again, more forcefully this time. Stephen indulged into it's embrace, and his hands started roaming again. But this time, they were met with a strong grip around his wrists, quickly tied up into cords he couldn't remember the Cloak posessed. Being much stronger than him, the Cloak easily overpowered him, arranging his arms above his head and straightening his legs, all while leaving butterfly-soft kisses on his neck and jaw. 

Stephen was surprised how much he enjoyed giving in into the Cloak’s dominance, letting it take the lead, relieved not having to worry of doing something wrong.  
If the Cloak felt more comfortable of being in charge after everything that happened, he was fine with that.

But he hadn’t expected the allure of giving up control, being at someone else’s mercy, not having to consider all options and risks, and he realized he hadn’t been this relaxed in years. 

Closing his eyes, he let his hips roll in rhythm with the Cloak’s waves – and opened them again, his pupils blowing wide open in shock as he realized the Cloak was forcing his legs apart, nibbling at his ass cheeks, and lifting him into the air. 

He was completely adrift, almost entirely covered by the Cloak, which was carefully but relentless working him open. 

“I – I don’t know if –“ 

His weak protest was muffled by a tender fringe covering his mouth like a tongue. 

During their first encounter, the Cloak had touched him down there too, but in a hesitating, teasing way. Now, it seemed determined to go all the way. It scared Stephen more than a bit, but the Cloak was simultaneously working his dick until he was hard again, somehow managed to make his balls feel licked and sucked, and his muscles didn’t stand a chance against this wide-spread sensual attack. 

Groaning and biting into piece of cloth that was filling his mouth, Stephen had no choice but giving himself into the absolute pleasure of being taken, the Cloak working itself into him deep, touching places the Doctor didn’t know existed. 

Stephen had no idea how much of the Cloak was now actually inside of him, while the remaining part was wrapped around him tightly.  
But instead of feeling constrained, it reminded him of his very first trip into the magic world, traveling through endless interstellar spheres. Only this time, it was _a lot_ more sensual.  
The Cloak was a part of him now as much as he was a part of the Cloak, and it was overwhelming, sparkling with colours and light behind his eyes, sweltering hot and ecstatic. 

And then the Cloak started moving! 

Starting slowly, it worked Stephen up until he was a withering mess, and once he was giving in, his body not fighting the intrusion anymore, it truly started pounding into him. 

Stephen would’ve screamed if he’d been able to.  
The orgasm hit him like a freight train, almost knocking him unconscious, and as he breathlessly released himself into the hot fabric around him, the Cloak burst into a vibrating light of dark pink, makes the strangest noise that you couldn’t hear, but feel in your teeth and fingertips. 

Like a silk scarf, it slipped to the ground, taking Stephen with it, still not releasing his quivering body.


End file.
